My Nail Polish collection!

For this month's 2014 Blogger Challenge post, we have to write about something to do with nails and as I wrote a review of my favourite polish yesterday (well done Jess...very clever planning there...), I've decided to show you the rest of my collection!

Apart from lipsticks, nail polishes are my weakness and I own too many in my mum's eyes. As far as I'm concerned, they're all gorgeous and wearable colours that I will use over and over again when the occasion arises and they're all as necessary as each other!

From the top pink going clockwise: The Girls are Out, Naughty Nautical, Bahama Mama, Chinchilly,
Orange, It's Obvious, Tea and Crumpets, Mademoiselle, Ballet Slippers, To Buy or Not to Buy,
Mojito Madness, Muchi Muchi, Tart Deco, Turquoise et Caicos, Aruba Blue.

My most collected brand of  polish is Essie, of which I own 14. I got 6 from Fragrance Direct for Christmas at £1.99 each and the rest have been bought at Boots over the last year or so. The 3 for 2 offer they have has saved me a pretty penny in that time! The colour range available is gorgeous and I always get so confused when trying to cut down the colours I want to buy to three because I love nearly all of them! The quality of these polishes is second to none and they're easily my favourite in all areas. The consistency is amazing, colours great, application brilliant and it always looks professional as the colours are strong as opaque. Add a base/top coat and you have a long lasting set of gorgeous nails! 

The rest of my collection!
See below pictures for names.

Left to right: Prickly Pear, Blue Moon, Mint Green, Berry Ice Cream, Pomegranate.

I also have 5 Barry M colours, 2 of which are part of the Gelly range. Even though a lot of people swear by these, I don't like them as much. They have a really good colour range and the polishes are pretty, but I find that they chip really easily and the Gelly colours aren't actually that shiny once dry. I don't dislike them and if I looked I would still probably find a pretty colour and want to buy it, but compared to Essie, they just don't hold up to the same standard. 

Left to right: Double Decker Red, Tangy Tangerine, Diamond Dust,
Block Your Green, Marshmallow Heaven.

I also own 5 Rimmel polishes - 4 from the I heart lasting finish range and 1 from the precious stones range. I've only used one of these and I really liked it. Again, they chipped quite easily but I have a feeling that as I haven't used base or top coats with any but Essie, I'll need to test this theory again sometime soon and then see how they last! I've also used the precious stones polish as an accent nail and I thought it was really good! 

Left to right: Cosmic Crush, Black Cherry, Red Robin, Topaz.

As they are only £1.99 each, I bought 4 Natural Collection polishes which, for their price, aren't too bad! There is a limited range of colours but the two I have are pretty and chip in the same amount of time as the Barry M or Rimmel even though they are about double the price of the Natural Collection polishes!

Left: Miami.
Right: Peacock.

I also own two 17 polishes but I don't remember the last time I wore either of them! I really love the green colour, I actually accidentally bought it for a second time once because I didn't remember owning it! Luckily Boots gave me my money back!

Left to right: Vivid Violet, Pink Grapefruit, Elixir, Tangy.

In a box on my set of drawers, I found 4 No7 polishes, all of which apart from the orange one I don't remember buying as they're quite old! I think the burgundy shade was a present from someone but again, I'm not really sure.

Marilyn.

My only Jessica nail polish was a present from my parents for Christmas a few years back (as a joke because of the name I think!) and I only opened it a few months ago! It's really high quality and would have lasted longer with a base/top coat but the colour is gorgeous and it applied nicely - I definitely want to find more colours! It also has such a pretty name!

No name.

I bought this NYC polish years and years ago for a party and I haven't used it for about 4 years...I should probably throw this one out! I think I ended up just using it as a polish to do polka dots with when I was in year 9 or so as it was difficult to remove so I didn't coat my whole nail in it. I remember that it was also quite gloopy when I used it so it really should head to the bin...

Big Apple Red.

I got this free with Glamour magazine a while back and I love it. It's a Nails Inc/Kate Spade collab and you all know my obsession with Kate Spade so I had to pick one up! I'm quite sad that I didn't also get the silver one too because it was really pretty and they're also really good quality! Very shiny and bright! I might have to see if all Nails Inc polishes are the same!

All in One

Since I bought it a little while back, this All in One base/top coat has been my holy grail. It goes on smoothly and thinly, dries in an instant and produces the most amazing shine when used as a top coat. It also doubles up as a nail strengthener so it's pretty good! Last time I used it, I managed to peel my nail polish off instead of having to use nail polish remover which is also great because the chemicals in the remover didn't get to undo all of the good work the base had done! My current nails have been going almost a week with this on and they still haven't chipped so I think it speaks for itself!

I have no idea how many of these are actually still being sold because as I've said, some are quite old and I don't even remember where I got them from!
Hope you guys enjoyed this, it made me realise how many polishes I have!
Jess xx

Challenge post four.
Challenge post three. (with links to two and one!)

Blog's first birthday!

It's been a year since I wrote my first blog post (I was the ultimate cringe, forgive me!) and what better way to spend it than with my one and only friend made from blogging, Kate! We went to Guildford and did quite a bit of shopping which was loads of fun!
A year has gone by stupidly fast and even though I only have 10 followers, I appreciate every single one and anyone who reads my blog for that matter! Every page view makes me happy! -virtual hug-

Getting in to Guildford was rather stressful - my train decided that it would be delayed for 20 minutes before showing up and Kate also had train problems so yeah....that was a good start! We ended up wandering around for a bit and then decided to go to New Look where we ended up buying the same skirt! Luckily we don't see each other often enough for it to matter, just another thing to show our similar tastes! I've been looking for a floral skirt that I like for ages and this one is perfect; I have lots of nice tops that have pinks, reds and white in them so they'll go perfectly with it! The skirt is made of a really light and soft material and is really swishy (if that's even an adjective...) so it looks really pretty!

I love it so much!

I love the pattern so much! 

It wasn't a true trip to Guildford without a visit to the American sweet shop. I haven't bought any for ages so I think I was well restrained! That, and the fact that the stock they had wasn't terribly good. I got my usual favourites and also picked up a box of berry flavour sour patch kids which are really good!  

I've heard countless bloggers rave on about these tinted lip balms for months now, but they've only been available in UK shops since the beginning of the week. There's a 3 for 2 on Maybelline at Boots so instead of just getting the 2 colours I wanted, I also got a 3rd free of charge! 

Baby Lips are supposedly super moisturising and make your lips softer and I can tell you, the hype was definitely worth it because these are the best lip balms I've ever had (either equal to or better than my tinted Burt's bees lip balms but yeah, still really good!). Their claims are pretty big but they're definitely up to scratch; I've been wearing one for an hour and a half or so now and my lips already feel softer. Quite a few lip products are quite sticky but these aren't at all, they feel light and you barely notice them! It takes a couple of goings over to get a really strong/bright colour but it also means that you get a choice with the strength of the colour you decide to make your lips which I find really good!  

From left to right: Pink Punch, Cherry Me, Peach Kiss

How cute is the packaging?!

They each have a smell corresponding to their names (Pink Punch is just fruity) and they're just fantastic! I think overall Peach Kiss is my favourite because the colour is more wearable every day as it matches my lips almost exactly and I'm a sucker for anything peach so it's perfect! Cherry Me is also a lovely smell but it takes longer to get it to an equal colour over all of my lips so it isn't as good for me. I really like Pink Punch but I have a feeling I'd need to be in the right mood to wear it because it is pretty bright. The colour and smell are still nice though! 

We went to H&M because there are usually pretty good deals in the sales and boy did I find one! This deep orange jumper was originally £7 in the sale but it had 2 holes in (one on the shoulder, one on the left of the jumper on the pic) so I managed to get the price down to £5 because they were pretty bad! Luckily my grandma is a dab hand at sewing and sewed the holes back up so now it looks brand new and I got a big discount from it! It's quite baggy but still looks good, plus it has a really cute neck too! I can't wait to wear it through autumn with some leggings and my brown boots, hopefully it'll look good!  

As I said earlier, I'm a sucker for anything peach and when I was at Sicily, the only alcohol I liked was Bellini (Prosecco and Peach puree). I came home from my trip today and mum had bought me this! It's a non-alcoholic version of Bellini but it tastes almost identical, even keeping the slightly sharp/bitter aftertaste and fizziness of the Prosecco! It's also amazing because it apparently has 1 of your 5 a day so it's even healthy!

All in all, I think today was a pretty brilliant way of celebrating my blog anniversary, thanks to everyone who's been a part of this so far! I hope you keep reading! 

Jess xx

P.S. You know I said I'd keep you updated on the Barry M nail polish? Yeah...it hasn't worked out so great! 

Left hand

Right hand

As you can see, they haven't lasted very well! I haven't used a top coat because I don't own any but they had already chipped a little bit the night after I had put the nail polish on which doesn't bode well. The nail polish also stops looking as shiny and nice quite quickly and now looks dull and smudged even though I didn't touch it at all while it was drying (I left my nails for about half an hour before checking them). I'm quite glad that it's only cheap because it wouldn't be worth any more sadly! It's a shame because the colours are amazing! I might just have to invest in a top coat so my Barry M nail polish isn't a waste!

Barry M gelly - Pomegranate

I love those days where you don't go out anywhere and just relax. Today, all I've done is get into my comfy lounge trousers and captain america jumper then watched TV (old re runs of Nickelodeon shows anyone?).
My nails have been boring for the last three weeks or so with all of my travelling making it impossible for me to have a spare minute to sit down and paint them and the fact that I just spent a week digging doesn't really give me any opportunity to have a nice nail colour and keep it on for too long! I'm happy that I've been able to just take an hour or so out and paint them today, they always look so much nicer with a fresh coat of colour on them! The colour I used was part of the Barry M gelly hi shine range in the colour Pomegranate which is a darker but bright pinky-red. I also have Prickly Pear from this range which is a really cute lilac colour. Barry M do the nicest range of colours and for quite a cheap price (£3.99 for the gelly paints, £2.99 for the regulars), I was pleasantly surprised! The brush is the perfect width and the colour went on really well without any problems! For someone who usually has to re-do at least one nail, this is pretty impressive! After only one coat, the colour on my nails looks like the bottle colour which I've never had before! It dried really quickly and is so shiny too but you would expect that from a range that call the line 'gelly hi-shine'!

How pretty is this colour?! I think I have a new love

I'm going out tomorrow and Friday so I'll report back for how it fares later on! I'm impressed so far though, it's been on for a good few hours now and it looks perfect!
Jess xx